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 Adèle is a wonderful book. But calling it wonderful feels a little worrisome because the prem­ise is as disturbing as it gets. Adèle Robinson, the titular character, is addicted to sex—loveless sex with just about any man who isn’t her husband. Her husband, on the other hand, is a devoted family man who doesn’t care much about sex. When Adèle conceives on their first try, “he was relieved that he didn’t have to wear out the body of the woman he loved by ‘trying’ over and over again.” So she picks up men in bars and bistros and hospital elevators and uses her best friend as alibi for the escapades.

On surface, 35-year-old Adèle seems to have it all. She is married to a handsome surgeon, is a suc­cessful journalist, and has a son she adores. And it’s not that Adèle enjoys cheating on her husband. She just can’t help it. Violent sexual release is what Adèle seeks for reasons even she doesn’t fully understand—perhaps to escape the monotony that comes from comfort because of her family’s money that “smells of work, of sweat and long nights spent at the hospital”.

Adèle is a difficult character to like. She is lazy and shallow, and seems to have little to no passion for anything in life except, of course, sex

Translated into English following the success of Lullaby, a story about a nanny who kills her young charges, Adèle was actually French-Moroccan author Leila Slimani’s first published novel. In various interviews, Slimani has said she writes about topics that fascinate her and by doing so she also wants to explore characters she doesn’t understand. Adèle is a story about women, what’s expected of them, and how their desires are often suppressed by it.

But Adèle is a difficult character to like. She is lazy and shallow, and seems to have little to no passion for anything in life except, of course, sex. It’s the crisp narration that keeps you hooked to this slim novel. The writing is sparse and Slimani only tells you what you absolutely need to know. She gives you a bit of a backstory, about teenage Adèle see­ing prostitutes that made her curious about sex, but there are no elaborate descriptions and details. Also, there is no moralizing from the author either. She doesn’t tell you how to feel or what to think about her nym­phomaniac character. Some readers will applaud Adèle while some will be appalled by her. But, either way, we will all think about her for a long time to come.

Book: ADÈLE

Genre: Fiction

Author: Leila Slimani

Translated into Englishby Sam Taylor

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published: January 15, 2019

Pages: 240, Paperback

 Your work commitments might leave you with very little time to read a good book but don’t let that deter you from picking up ‘No Fixed Address’ by Susin Nielsen, which you can finish in a day, or a weekend at the most. The novel might have been writ­ten for 10- to 12-year-olds, but adult readers will find it as engag­ing. It will kind of remind you of Nick Hornby’s ‘About a Boy’ but with its own unique aspects, No Fixed Address is as fresh and delight­ful as it can get.

The basic premise of the YA nov­el is this: 12-year-old Felix’s mom, Astrid, is a caring mother but she is also depressed and thus can’t seem to hold a job. Unable to pay rent for their shabby apartment, Astrid decides to live in a van. She instructs Felix not to tell anyone about this living arrangement as that might mean he will be taken away from her and put into foster care. What was to be a temporary arrangement soon becomes a way of life for the mother son duo and Felix struggles to cope with it.

Felix is too young to understand what’s going on with his mother but he wants to help her

Felix might be too young to under­stand what’s going on with his moth­er but he wants to help her and that opportunity arises when he gets a chance to audition for a junior edi­tion of ‘Who What Where When’, a quiz contest. Winning the cash prize would solve all their problems and, most importantly, put an actual roof over their heads. With a knack for trivia, Felix is determined to earn a spot on the show. But things don’t turn out the way he expects them to.

The novel is charming because Nielsen tells a simple story with a lot of grace and empathy, and she seems to know exactly how her characters, even secondary ones like Felix’s best friends, Dylan and Winnie, are supposed to be. Astrid, even with her knack of acquiring useless boyfriends, losing useful jobs, and “borrowing” from super­markets, manages to worm her way into your heart, and you desperately want to help Felix in his quest to save her.

But, struggling against circum­stances well beyond his control and juggling responsibilities that are no child’s play, it is Felix who has you in the palm of his hands. You will read No Fixed Address without a moment’s break because the antici­pation of how Felix manages to pull his mother and himself out of the cracks of poverty won’t let you think of anything else.

No Fixed Address

Genre: Fiction

Author: Susin Nielsen

Published: September 2018

Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books

Pages: 288, Hardback

 In a case of egregious negligence bordering on criminal behavior on the part of a Nepali insurer, 49-year-old Malaysian tourist Wui Kin Chin was left for dead when he became stranded at an altitude of 7,500 meters during a descent from Annapurna-I. The senior anesthesiologist and climbing enthusiast had gone miss­ing on his way down after his suc­cessful ascent of the 8,091-meter peak on April 23.

When the news of her missing husband reached Chin’s wife, she contacted the insurance company and asked it to mount an imme­diate search and rescue. Global Rescue, with whom Chin had tak­en out an insurance before his expedition, refused to help, say­ing that her husband may have died—and that they were not liable for anything.

Distraught, Mrs Chin then con­tacted Simrik Air, a company that specializes in mountain rescues with a fleet of high-altitude helicop­ters. On the morning of April 25, Captain Siddhartha Jung Gurung flew out in search of Chin in the Annapurna Region.

 At around 8 am on April 25, the Malaysian was spotted above Camp IV, waving his arms at the helicopter

At around 8 am, the Malaysian was spotted above Camp IV, waving his arms at the helicopter. A team of longline rescuers under Captain Bibek Khadka was immediately dis­patched to the site.

“We started a search and rescue mission as soon as we were con­tacted,” Yogesh Sapkota, marketing head at Simrik Air, told APEX. “Our first priority was to drop oxygen and food supplies to Chin.”

Because of the high altitude, direct longline rescue for Chin was not possible. By the time we went to press, a team of rescuers had embarked on foot to get him back to Camp III from where he will be flown to Kathmandu in a Simrik helicopter.

The incident exemplifies how some insurance companies oper­ating in Nepal swindle tourists by making them pay hefty premiums but later refuse to help and com­pensate. Tourists suffer, which also makes potential adventure tourists wary of coming to Nepal.

UPDATE

Late on April 25, the rescuers were able to get to Wui Kin Chin and bought him to Camp III.

At the time of his rescue, Chin had been without an oxygen bottle, food and water for over 40 hours, said Mingma Sherpa, the head of Seven Summit Treks, which arranged his expedition, the Associated Press reported.

Chin was flown to the capital, Kathmandu, on Friday and taken to a hospital, where his wife joined him.

Sherpa credited Chin’s medical knowledge and familiarity with mountains for keeping him alive.

"It's a big thing to stay alive in that altitude without food, water, and oxygen," the AP quoted Sherpa as saying. He described Chin on Thursday as fine but not in condition to walk.

 This elaborate period drama set in 1946 India, a year before the country’s partition, is a treat to the eyes. If you like elaborate histor­ical dramas, à la Sanjay Leela Bhan­sali (‘Bajirao Mastani’, ‘Ram-leela’ and ‘Padmaavat’), then you will like ‘Kalank’ too. And yet it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The film revolves around long-bur­ied secrets of a family in pre-par­tition Husnabad, Lahore, where the majority of the population is Muslim. A tragic tale of six people whose lives are intertwined under the larger Hindu-Muslim conflict and the trauma of India-Pakistan partition, Kalank offers a magnifi­cent visual spectacle that transports us back in time.

In lead roles are all mega-stars and their talent is not wasted. After debuting together in ‘Student of the Year’ (2012), Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan have each grown a lot as actors, more so Bhatt. Lately, she has been able to nail even the most difficult roles.

 Kalank’s major drawback is that in this day and age it is extremely hard to keep the audience hooked for three straight hours

We have already seen Bhatt work her magic in films like ‘High­way’ (2014), ‘Udta Punjab’ (2016) and ‘Raazi’ (2018). She does not disappoint in Kalank as well. Here she plays Roop, who is married off against her will to an already married man and finds her­self badly torn between her heart and her mind.

Aditya Roy Kapur brings his trade­mark laid-back attitude to the table as Dev Chowdhury, a silent and loving man who as a newspaper editor is on a crusade against the imminent partition of his country. Varun Dhawan as Zafar, a philander­ing ironsmith born out of wedlock, gives a hot-and-cold performance this time. The audience never quiet connect with him. Completing the Kalank ensemble are Madhuri Dixit (the dance queen is, of course, a courtesan), Sanjay Dutt (a dour busi­nessman and father) and Sonakshi Sinha (a desperate wife).

Despite a complex plot and back­stories with multiple India-Pakistan conflict subplots, you can easily fol­low the storyline. If you can ignore some bad VFX work, the spectac­ular costumes, jewelry and set designs will have you oohing. The Alia-Madhuri dances are reminis­cent of that unforgettable Aish­warya-Madhuri combo in the clas­sic ‘Dola re Dola’ from the movie ‘Devdas’ (2002). Even though there are plenty of songs in this film you don’t feel like it because you will enjoy most of them.

At just under three hours, it does feel a little stretched though. Kalank’s major drawback is that in this day and age it is extremely hard to keep the audience hooked for three straight hours, no matter how good a film is. And Kalank is not perfect for that matter. The back­ground scores are mistimed. Essen­tial stuff like how a lowly courtesan owns the most lavish kothi, or why a newspaper is targeted by mobs for its simple reporting, are left to the audience’s imagination. Moreover, the sequence of events is hurried, with the viewers seldom getting a change to digest a crucial event.

There is no shortage of good music, great dancing and unexpected plot twists though. Director Abhishek Verman seems determined to pull off a Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and he has largely succeeded. This one is a cinematic treat!

Movie: Kalank

Genre: Drama/Romance

Cast: Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Madhuri Dixit, Sanjay Dutt

Direction: Abhishek Verman

Rating: 3.5/5

Q. What is important to you that you rare­ly talk about?

A. Privacy.

Q. A quote you live by?

A. ‘If you don’t spend time to work on creating the life you want, you are eventu­ally going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with the life you don’t want.’

Q. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

A. Night owl.

Q. Something your fans wouldn’t believe about you?

A. I am short-tempered.

Q. If one of your wishes were to be granted, what would it be?

A. Every child gets educa­tion for free.

Q. What’s the best part of your day?

A. At night when I get into bed with the music on.

Q. Your alternate career choice?

A. I already have one: Engineering.

Q. What is one question you wish more peo­ple asked you?

A. So, what did you learn from that?

Q. Who would you like to work with next?

A. Prashant Rasaily.  

 ‘Hellboy’ is an action thriller based on the graphic nov­els of Mike Mignola and the movie franchise of the same name. Directed by Neil Marshall, the 2019 reboot revolves around the lead protagonist, Hellboy, who finds himself caught between the super­natural and human worlds.

After watching an hour of ‘Game of Thrones’ gore in the morning, I had assumed Hellboy would make for a fresh change of mood. Turns out, I had completely missed the ‘R’ rating on the movie and the fact that the director also has some Game of Thrones work under his belt. So, boy, was I in for a surprise!

The movie starts with a husky male voice narrating the plot back­ground, with the camera slowly moving towards the top of a hill. The color isolation in the first scene highlighting the red in Nimue (Milla Jovovich), a sorceress, with a pitch dark background, is simply fantas­tic. The first scene is really about how King Arthur has the body of Nimue dismembered and scattered in little chests.

Then you’re taken to the pres­ent, in Colorado, where we get the first look at Hellboy (David Har­bour) clad in a maroon hoodie with rock music blaring from his ear­buds; we’re taken to a boxing match. And did I tell you our boy is a product of hell? Given his devil­ish look, he naturally evokes the crowd’s xenophobia. This scene caught my eye for its fantastic use of translation subtitles: When the characters speak in Spanish, a bright yellow stroke text is displayed in a very natural way.

Our friendly beast has a great sense of humor. Mid-fight, trying to calm his best friend down, he says “remember the old times, you played that acoustic crap, while I played real music?”

Shortly after we are treated to our first gore scene. A beast, seek­ing revenge on Hellboy, goes on a quest to resurrect Nimue. In this scene, he breaks into a church and kills the priests merciless­ly. At times, the thriller feels like a horror movie. When the beast takes out and eats the brain of a priest in order to chant the holy verse I knew how mistaken I was about the movie’s nature.

When the beast brings back the sorceress to life the trio of Hellboy, Alice (Sasha Lane) and Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) go on an adventure to hunt down the sorceress, with the support of the protagonist’s father Trevor (Ian McShame). Kim, in his character of a martial Jap­anese-American, gives a wonder performance too.

The movie also has a fair share of ‘fourth wall breaking’, not a new thing since the advent of Deadpool, but Hellboy has it even in serious scenes. Hesitant to kill, Hellboy keeps asking Alice why he should really kill the sorceress. The answer: “To make sure she doesn’t come back for the sequel”. There’s also a fair share of pop culture reference here and there with an old wizard being referred to as Gandalf.

It is a spectacular movie in the first half. Really. It had me with the dark visuals, the gore, the funky rock music, and a clever plot. The second half felt underwhelming though. In this half, character development was poor, the emotional scenes failed to con­nect with the audience, and the movie just felt bland. I feel that is not the fault of the comic characters but the director.

Movie: Hellboy

Genre: Fantasy/Action

Cast: David Harbour, Milla Jo­vovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim

Direction: Neil Marshall

Rating: 3/5

 ‘Shazam!’ is not just a super­hero movie, but a cre­ative blend of effortless humor, family drama and sus­pense, all packed into a compact action film. Based on DC Comics character of the same name, this movie is the seventh installment of the DC Extended Universe.x

In the wake of such successes like ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Aqua­man’, expectations from DC movies have risen and this film doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it rais­es the bar higher for upcoming DC films.

The movie revolves around the 14-year-old foster kid Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who can turn into a superhero, Shazam (Zachary Levi), by shouting ‘Shazam!’

In his life before his super­stardom, this pure-of-heart boy is desperately searching for his birth mother from whom he had been accidentally separated during childhood. Away from his parents, he finds real home with a foster family.

By and by, Billy gets cho­sen as ‘the one’ by an old wiz­ard who is keen to transfer all his superpowers on to a decent human being.

The wizard wants to give his powers to Billy so that the young man can fight the super-villain Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), the embodiment of the seven deadly sins.

In the first half, Billy as Shaz­am is shown trying to discover his superpowers—Can he fly? Can he produce electricity with his bare hands?—which gives us some hilarious moments.

The second half is more action-oriented as Shaz­am finds himself locked in a pitched battle against the evil Dr Sivana.

The casting does justice to a strong script. Levi is a perfect fit for Shazam, as he ably channels the innocence of the 14-year-old Billy into a muscular adult body with multiple superpowers. Levi is hilarious, heartwarming and, above all, believable as an ‘adult child’.

The brilliant use of VFX in this 3D film completely transports you into the DC Universe

The character development of Billy, and Levi’s comic chem­istry with his ‘sidekick’ foster brother Freddie (Zack Dylan Grazer) are also interesting. Freddie, a sickly boy in a crutch, helps keep Shazam grounded, reminding him that “with great power comes great responsi­bility”. Mark Strong as Dr Siva­na is scary as hell, and the per­fect embodiment of a comic super-villain.

The brilliant use of VFX in this 3D film completely transports you into the DC Universe. A mas­ter of the horror genre, Director David Sandberg (‘Lights out’, ‘Annabelle: Creation’) effortlessly blends some creepy stuff—in the monstrous depictions of the sev­en deadly sins, for instance—into this superhero film as well, and as such will hook lovers of horror as well.

Besides this, with a sunny couple fostering five homeless children of diverse backgrounds, ‘Shazam’ offers a poignant picture of model foster families.

A complete package of action and comedy, this mov­ie is good enough to win many new fans, appealing even to those not normally into superhero genre.

 Who should watch it?

DC Comic fans will love it. Even those not into superheroes and fantasy should watch. You are sure to like big chunks of it, if not the whole thing. Go get Shazammed!

Movie: Shazam

Genre:  Fantasy/ Science Fiction

Cast: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Zack Dylan Grazer

Direction: David Sandberg

Rating: 4/5

‘Saili’ is a rom-com dealing with the social repercus­sions of foreign migration in rural Nepal. Based in a beautiful village in Kaski, director Ram Babu Gurung (‘Kabaddi’, ‘Kabaddi Kabaddi’, ‘Purano Dunga’) has once again aced a rural theme. Saili is exactly what cinema should be: a piece of art.

It is a feminist movie while not screaming of forced “Naari Shakti”, basically a tale of a Muna who falls in love with the wrong Madan.

The movie opens with two men and a woman inside what appears to be a ‘bhatti’. They are both hus­bands to women who are away on foreign employment. They go on a misogynistic rant about the soul-crushing reality of having to live at their wife’s expense, when the Sauni promptly reminds them who pays for their alcoholic life. The scene then contrasts to a face of a young woman navigating Tribhuvan Airport, cautious in her steps and innocent in her emotions.

And with a quick scene transition we travel back. The story starts with Saili (Menuka Pradhan) and Suni­ta (Kenipa Singh) sitting beside a river when Saili loses her slipper to a wave. Following the route of the slipper, Saili meets Pitambar (Gaurav Pahari) and his friend Bir­man (Dayahang Rai), who are both bathing downstream. Pite is instant­ly smitten by Saili. When asked for the slipper, Pite refuses, upsetting the women who then head home.

The male duo are then on a quest to woo the two women and head to Saili’s home on the pretext of giving back her slipper. After a rather awkward conversation with Saili’s father, who happens to be a lender to his own father, Pite plants a love letter inside one of Saili’s shoes. He writes of his feelings and proposes a date over ‘Jhol Momo’. Saili, with a knack for romance nov­els, is instantly wooed. For his part, Dayahang Rai or Bire, with his typi­cal ‘bango humor’, keeps the tone of the movie light.

And there are plenty of oth­er light moments. In one notable scene, Sunita can be seen taunt­ing Saili that she might take away her lover because “Ajkal ko Madan lai Muna haina Munni chaincha” (No, we won’t even try to translate that). The entire movie hall thunders with laughter.

The romance borrows elements from Nepali rural society—indirect approaches to romance, reluctance to public display of affection, inabil­ity to express love with a straight face. The Pite-Saili affair progress­es steadily until Saili’s father gets a wind of it. He senses a ploy by Pite to null out his father’s debt by marrying his daughter. Time and again, Pite is reminded to pay off his father’s debt, and even offered a job oversees by an ex-wardman.

By and by, Saili’s father fixes her marriage with someone else. Pite’s father in turn suggests he elope with Saili. “Everything is fair in love”, his father says as the audi­ence go wild again. On a rainy eve­ning, Pite arrives at Saili’s, with Bire in tow, to rescue his princess. The three run away.

To pay off his father’s outstand­ing debts, Pite then decides to go abroad. But as luck would have it, Pite is denied a passport because of the unrealistically similar looks between Pite and his father.

After the middleman (the ex-ward­man) proposes Saili go abroad to work instead of Pite, the movie takes a melodramatic turn and the misogyny of the lead male character comes in full display. The propo­sition hurts his male ego and he is mad with anger. Nonetheless, in having to make this tough decision, Saili can be seen as representing all Nepali women working abroad to feed their family back home.

The filmmakers could have done more justice to the character of Saili by giving her more screen time and delving more into her strug­gles abroad. And the only problem with storytelling is towards the end, when the filmmakers try to white­wash Pite’s previous actions.

The musical score is fantastic at the start. But as the movie is filled with many renditions of the Saili song, it feels super-repetitive and loses its charm. There are also some noticeable faults in sound mixing. Of course these are little things on the grander scale. But when you’re watching a movie this good, you’re only left with bread­crumbs of criticism.

Who should watch it?

Fans of Ram Babu Gurung’s rural storytelling. You don’t need to watch ‘Saili’ just to support the Nepali film industry. First, it’s a good movie, and only then a Nepali one.

Movie: Saili

Genre: Romance/Comedy

Cast: Gaurav Pahari, Menuka Pradhan, Daya Hang Rai, Kenipa Singh

Direction: Ram Babu Gurung

Rating: 4/5